Kafka thread

The Castle would probably be my favorite Kafka book if it wasn't for that 50-page long Olga's monologue

Reading Deleuze's "Kafka: towards minor literature" is essential, as well as his diaries and letters to Milena.

I tried reading the metamorphosis, it only convinced me that I hate germans

It was fucked up how Tony killed him.

Olga's monologue is amazing and it oworks

>Reading Deleuze [...] is essential
kek, no!

Germans? Kafka was an Austro-Hungarian Jew.

>hate germans
you don't like literature I guess

>ever written
of the 20th century. Still high praise, though.

The baby seat was completely destroyed

Amerika is his best work. The Trial is good, but overrated by scholars. His diaries are amazing and pure literature. One of the greatest, least easily categorizable writers of all time. Also had a job and never attempted to publish much.
our guy

Did Nabokov even into German? How could he know otherwise?

>He is criminally underrated on here.
What? He really isn't. Just read Description of a Struggle and Wedding Preparations in the Country. Both were underwhelming, but they're early stories and most people think they're kinda shit.

peculiar
shallow
thank you

he had the best titles for sure

example: die verwandlung

gets the reader thinking: who's this guy verwandlung? and why on earth does somebody want him DEAD?

He predicted the pesticide business lobby.

terminally boring

good post

He's actually been consistently and roundly confirmed to not be "that" good

Good thing you were here to fill us in

This. A Hunger Artist is his best.

I really liked parts of the Trial, but parts of it were so mundane that I found it difficult to keep reading. By the end of it, I had absolutely no interest in reading the unincluded extra chapters.

Should I bother reading The Castle? I Just read The End of the World by Murakami and apparently they are similar.

lel

so many layers

Meh. Boring as fuck.

I find it ridiculous
I only read the metamorphosis and the trial but from what I can tell its almost dream like. The situation they are in are either entirely stressful or completely superficial. They trial was one of the weirdest cases because he could have simply ignored them or left if he was really scared, then they stabbed him and it when from comically ridiculous to convoluted as it turned out to actually be serious

I don't think you understood The Trial at all user

>read the metamorphosis
>go on the Internet to see what others say about it
>dude it's about capitalism lmao (fuck Marxists)
>dude he's not really a bug it's all in his head

How did he even prefigure the whole gangstalking phenomena back then?

did kafka liked yoign boys..

Excellent post desu

Those things aren't a huge stretch

...

Comparing him to Joyce is a bit much.

But yes, he is criminally underrated. I think that, in a sense, he was ahead of his time. Had Kafka lived in the age of Veeky Forums and Reddit he probably would have had a much more immediate audience in self-loathing beta males who secretly just want to be loved.

I don't say that in a sardonic or mean way; I'm serious. I relate to Kafka a lot.

this, i loved The Castle

I listened to it on librivox, it was noice.

That's awfully simplistic. Kafka did experience love, it wasn't what he wanted. He caught himself in a narcissistic struggle that was ultimately about morality and religion. He wanted to be good and strong and wise (which he ultimately achieved towards the last 3-4 years of his life). At the same time, he recognized his own genius, but also recognized that it was dependent on him not disconnecting himself from his parental problems, on him deepening his emotional conflicts, on him developing an extreme split between what was his regular life and his writing life.

He knew this dynamic very well (he outlines it in great detail in his diary and the letter to his father) but he nontheless chose to engage in it. He barely slept, he suffered (he was much tougher than people give him credit for). There wasn't a way for him to be a writer that also meant being good and strong and leading a fulfilled life. This is at the core of his work, the incompatibility of these two wishes.

You sound like you know the ins and outs about kafka. Can i ask what you do? Sorry if it’s too personal, just wondering.

Student of literature and history, that's about it. I'm not qualified in any particular way to talk about Kafka, just have a personal fascination with him (born from a sense of identification probably, or him serving as a sort of spiritual father figure for me. (I even went to Prague and visited his grave)). I've read 90% of what he wrote barring some of the letters and I think Kafka is generally not understood very well. That being said, I don't have a neat all-encompassing explanation on hand either, what I wrote there comes close though.

If you want to get deeper into Kafka I'd recommend Max Brod's biography and the diaries as well as his short fiction. Also Amerika, I believe that's Kafka in his most innocent, most distilled form. It's full of autistic humor, weakness, imagination and wonderful tiny bits of melancholy.

Oh. Are you a girl by any chance? I think i have a boner.

i'm a man, amigo

were you baiting or genuinely asking btw?

Depends.

the castle was my favourite book when i was 17

>KAAfka

...

Get over yourself

he lived in Germany from 1922 to 1937

read The Castle, damn you

Anyone else confused with In the Penal Colony? I understand the plot and events but I ended it confused what Kafka meant by it.

He's the best. One of two good German prose writers.

>The Castle

Can someone please explain what Bürgel was trying to say in chapter 23? I didn't really understand that part.

can't really say what "the" meaning is. You could understand it poetologically, religiously, as a critique of colonialization and/or totalitarianism and and and ....

I love Kafka's novels, their magic is unmatched anywhere, their tone is pitch perfect and entirely unique, I have read the three of them three times each but I have yet to get into any of his short stories besides The Hunger Artist and The Metamorphosis and the strange torture machine one. One day I will get a collection of his stories and read them through.

Third was funny when it was first posted five years ago.

He looks like the Parkland School shooter

You get over yourself, you pretentious fuck. I was pointing out a very important qualification. God, I wish I could eradicate your genes from the gene pool and Holocaust every faggot like you.

Just to make clear, I was saying Nabokov himself said it was the best piece of prose of the 20th century

>be supervisor at work
>out of the blue, nice educated co-worker (and immediate subordinate) asks me: did you ever read the Metamorphosis?
>Yes, yes I did, once a long time ago
>what did you think it was ABOUT, really?

>in a work setting, and given our professional relationship, I did not dare tell her that it represents Kafka's internalized self-hatred and anti-semitism b/c Europe sees jews as roaches and consequently Kafka projects himself a roach; I instead simply gave her some pablum about body horror and how it (the story) is just an experiment. She's smart so she'll probably find out the real content of the story soon enough-but she's not getting it from me, while I'm on the job. You're not going to catch me out there

he sucks, fuck that jew

Nabokov is trash, don't take that pretentious twat's advice

didn't he also like to do gymnastics nude and flex in the mirror? if so, doubly my guy